The Misadventures of a Vegetarian Foodie

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Daily Archives: March 17, 2014

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I wore a green headband to work, just in case anyone is in the pinching mood. 🙂 Does it also count that I’ll be eating a lot of green things today? Yes? Okay, then we’re good.

When you’re a kid, green foods can go one of two ways. Either it’s super gross (I mean, cooked spinach is kind of slimy and weird looking), or it’s really cool (remember when they made green ketchup??). When I was young, my mom would get super into all themed holidays, and St. Patrick’s Day was a really fun one. She used to put green food coloring in everything. Our cereal milk was green, and our lunches would have sandwiches in green bread, and we would eat green cookies after school. My mom loved anything with a theme, and any reason to celebrate, so if she had an excuse to dye everything green for one day, she took it.

That kind of stuff is fun for kids, but as an adult, it would probably be weird to put green food coloring in my lunch bag and bring it to work. Instead, I had an early St. Patrick’s celebration this weekend with green pasta and pizza!

Guys, I’m a pesto junkie. It’s so nutty and robust in flavor. I just can’t even right now. But, homemade pesto requires a ton of fresh basil, and it isn’t all that healthy — traditional pesto recipes sneak in a lot of fat in the form of oil, cheese and pine nuts. By reducing the amount of cheese and oil; substituting the rich pine nuts with almonds and the basil with spinach; and adding in broth and lemon juice, this recipe has a ton of flavor without ruining your diet. Not to mention, this sauce takes minutes to make. It’s so delicious that it didn’t even last a full day when I made it this weekend! After tossing it with some whole wheat penne at lunch time, the boys and I made mini flatbread pizzas for dinner, and the pesto pizza was a huge hit!

The pesto flatbread pizza is the slice on the right — it is topped with spinach, onions, mushrooms and Weight Watchers Italian blend cheese. Also pictured is a veggie flatbread pizza with red sauce, and a mango salad.

You can also put this pesto on your favorite sandwich, or drizzle it over a fresh caprese salad.